DR. HONEY UNNIKRISHNAN JOURNEY TO MOHINIATTAM ARANGETRAM

I started my dance lessons under my mother Pramila Unnikrishnan. My Mother started taking classes for kids who lived near by I was never a serious Learner; as a kid, I wanted all the kids to play with me, so I used to disturb them and would not allow them to dance.

Slowly I started taking Bharatanatyam lessons seriously and started practicing with them. I was a quick learner so I graspedallthedancesthatweretaughtto seniors, slowly and steadily I started dancing on stage My first Bharatanatyam performance was in front of Ganapati during Ganesh Chaturthi. I started doing lot of stage performances with the students of the class. When I was 8 years old my mother introducedMohiniattamdancetome,she taughtmesomeofexercises

I fell in love with the graceful movements of mohiniattam. I performed chellakettu for the first time on stagewhen I was in standard fifth. It felt so good, it was an inexpressible feeling. I loved performing Bharatanatyam but doing mohiniattam on stage was something different already enchanted I chanced to see a mohiniyattam performance of Dr Neena Prasad mam in DD Malayalam and within next three days i got to see another performance of herinSuryafestival;Iwasinawe.

I decided that day that I am going to learn under her some day. I saw an advertisement of NTDC that there is a three day Dance Festival in Nagpur and listsaperfomanceof DrNeenaPrasad I jumped in excitement, I had test in my tuition but I decided to go and watch the performance.

That performance was just amazing, I went backstage post performance and spoke to her and she informed that she teaches at Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. I completed 10th 11th and 12th but my my dream was to go to Neena Prasad Mam and learn underher.Igotadmissioninbachelorsof dentistry, along with it i completed my bachelors in dance as well. I got married to Jiten Shankar Raj who is a film and advertisement director. Soon after my marriage I shifted to Chennai with my husband and immediately joined with myidolNeenaPrasadmadam.